Franz Schubert’s Quartet № 12 (Quartettsatz) is a piece just as mysterious as the famous Unfinished Symphony by the same author. After the composer’s death, his brother Ferdinand found among Schubert’s papers the manuscript of the only part of the Quartet which had been written 14 years earlier. Why did Schubert write only one part instead of the traditional four ones? It is unlikely that the answer to this question can be given but despite being unfinished this work has firmly established itself in the concert repertoire, having repeated the fate of the Unfinished Symphony.
The “unfinished quartet” and “the Unfinished Symphony”also have a lot in common in purely musical terms - first of all, a pronounced romantic character of both pieces. The romanticism here is Werther-like, the romanticism of Sturm und drang, it is set by an alarmingly agitated introduction and swirling gusts of rising passages.The first violin acts as a voice whose singing intonations create elegiac melody sounding as if it were interrupted by sighs. It is one of those melodies that penetrate deeply into the soul and stay there forever. Probably, having said his inmost thoughts, Schubert did not have the need to compose three more parts to complete the cycle.
Nadezhda Koulygina
Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet enjoys a popularity rare for a work that is so academic in terms of genre. The reason is the programme, which Shostakovich exhaustively expounded in a letter to Isaak Glikman, telling his friend of his arrival in July 1960 at a resort in Saxon Switzerland near Dresden: “I watched materials of the film Five Days, Five Nights directed by Lev Arnshtam. I settled in very well to create the right artistic surroundings. The artistic conditions justified themselves: I composed my Eighth Quartet there. However much I tried to execute my tasks in rough for the cinematic film, I have as yet been unable to do so. And instead of that I wrote an ideologically empty quartet that no-one needed. I considered that if I ever die then it is extremely unlikely anyone would write a work dedicated to my memory. And so I decided to write one myself.”
Shostakovich wrote this musical “auto-epitaph” literally a few days after he had been unable to avoid joining the CPSU (although he had refused to join the party several times, it having destroyed the lives of so many people). In the music, the programme is expressed just as clearly. The quartet opens with a monogram there (D-Es-C-H), which runs through all five parts, in places even becoming importunate. The composer’s self-portrait is completed using themes from his First, Eighth and Tenth Symphonies, the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, his Piano Trio and Cello Concerto. The themes come with “hints” of Wagner’s Trauermarsch and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony as well as the revolutionary songTormented by Grievous Bondage. Officially, the quartet is dedicated to the memory of victims of fascism and war. There are different versions of the Eighth Quartet for various performing ensembles. Rudolf Barshai’s orchestration was given the titleChamber Symphony.
Anna Bulycheva
The First Quartet in D-major. op. 11 (1871) was composed by Tchaikovsky – a young professor of the newly opened Moscow Conservatory, the author of the Symphony №1 Winter Daydreams and the Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet which was a roaring success with the audience. Having premiered at Tchaikovsky’s music concert on 16 March, 1871, the Quartet immediately became very popular with the audience. In St Petersburg where the Quartet was also soon performed, it, according to the author, also “caused furore”.
For all its classical structure, the four-movement cycle of the Quartet is marked by the composer’s individuality. The slow part of the Quartet – the famous Andante cantabile – has become a favourite piece, many times translated for different instruments and ensembles. In it Tchaikovsky used the popular city song “Vanya sat on the sofa”. In December 1876 (by that time Tchaikovsky had already become the author of three string quartets) the Quarter № 1 was performed at the Conservatory at a music evening in honour of L.N. Tolstoy. When Tolstoy was listening to Andante cantabile, he burst into tears. On the following day he sent Tchaikovsky a letter, thanking him for “the wonderful evening” and offering him folk songs for musical adaptation.
Iosif Raiskin
The 24 Caprices for Solo Violin (1802–1817) is a cycle from which Nicolo Paganini’s biography as a composer began. When the Caprices were composed, Paganini was just starting his career and hadn’t become the violin virtuoso known all over Europe yet. Initially, the Caprices were not intended for public performance – they were dedicated to “all musicians” and were meant to be a kind of “a violin school”, however, later they became popular as concert pieces as well.
Paganini uncovered the instrument’s capacities unknown before. However, the value of these pieces is not associated only with their technical hypercomplexity as, in essence, they are etudes for a certain violin technique.
Paganini laid the foundation for the understanding of the genre which would later revealed itself in piano etudes by Chopin and Liszt where the technical task is a mere medium of creating an artistic image.
The myth enshrouded figure of the legendary virtuoso and composer has become a cult one for romanticism in music.
Anastasiya Spiridonova 
